Intel Names 64-Bit Extension Technology for Xeon

T

Tony Hill

Intel Corp. will call the 64-bit extension technology for its 32-bit
Xeon processors Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology, or Intel EM64T.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1545738,00.asp

That's at least a little bit better, I never could figure out how
"IA-32e" was a 64-bit instruction set! Not that EM64T is all that
much better, but at least it's somewhat more obvious that we're
talking about 64-bit chips.

Makes me wonder about all the existing software out there that is
labeled "AMD64". Will Intel marketing try to muscle people into
changing that name to "EM64T"? Will they settle on the somewhat
generic "x86-64"? It's all the same thing, but I'm sure Intel will
not like telling people to "go get the AMD64 binary to run on your
shiny new Xeon64".
 
G

George Macdonald

Intel Corp. will call the 64-bit extension technology for its 32-bit
Xeon processors Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology, or Intel EM64T.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1545738,00.asp

Hmmm, I guess they figure if they give it a feeble sounding name it'll be
perceived as a feeble, inferior solution in comparison to Itanium... the
"real" 64-bit CPU.:^)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??
 
E

Ed

Hmmm, I guess they figure if they give it a feeble sounding name it'll be
perceived as a feeble, inferior solution in comparison to Itanium... the
"real" 64-bit CPU.:^)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??


"...despite the money and effort Intel put behind creating and marketing
its 64-bit Itanium chip, it was working on another project designed to
add extensions to its 32-bit processors."

So I guess most of that work Intel supposedly did on extensions to its
32-bit processors was thrown out for AMD's?

Ed
 
T

Tony Hill

"...despite the money and effort Intel put behind creating and marketing
its 64-bit Itanium chip, it was working on another project designed to
add extensions to its 32-bit processors."

So I guess most of that work Intel supposedly did on extensions to its
32-bit processors was thrown out for AMD's?

Probably not, they were likely ~90% identical. AMD64 is a very
natural extension to the x86 instruction set. If you wanted to make a
64-bit processor out of an 32-bit x86 chip, chances are that you would
end up with something like AMD64 regardless of who designed it. There
are definitely some minor differences that one could make, a few
tweaks here and there that might not be 100% obvious, but the bulk of
it is pretty straightforward.

That's part of the reason why so many people like the AMD64
instruction set, it just sort of makes sense (or at least as much
sense as x86 made in the first place, which admittedly isn't all that
much :> ).
 

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